Norminal SDA's, Social SDA's, and other flavors

[bevin]

In another post Shane wrote...

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Too bad the parents didn't instill fear of nominal Adventists too. The church is full of them - especially in North America.

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It seems to me that there are many aspects of being an SDA. Lifestyle, theology, fear, love, friends, and many other factors are at play.

What makes a person a "nominal" SDA - and is the NAD particularly at fault?

/Bevin

[phkrause]

I agree with your opinion.

pkrause

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

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bevin said:

It seems to me that there are many aspects of being an SDA. Lifestyle, theology, fear, love, friends, and many other factors are at play.

What makes a person a "nominal" SDA - and is the NAD particularly at fault?

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Nominal SDAs (or Baptists or Methodists or Catholics or Lutherans), I would think, are those folks who have no deep sense of conviction that their denomination is helping them get to know Christ. I don't know that the NAD is particularly at fault. []http://img.inkfrog.com/pix/Rudywoofs/icon_confused.gif[/]

I think the *microwave* culture that is present in America and elsewhere might be producing *microwave Christians.* No fuss. No muss. No preparation. No measuring and mixing of ingredients or careful watching. Nothing to think about. Nearly instant gratification and results. There seems to be no, or very little, cultivation of *waiting on the Lord.* I may be wrong, but I think the *waiting* might be very important. Just sort of a hunch I have..

All just imho..

[olger]

Peter foresees a generation laden with disbelief in Christ’s coming and saying “Much time has passed, so why continue to believe?”

Sociologists and theologians have coined a phrase that defines the doubt in our current society. They call it postmodernism.

What are the driving concepts of postmodern thinking?

To cite only a few, I’m sensitive that quite a number of you are aware of these: Every person is now crafting for himself the true reality in which he or she lives. It does not come from outside, it is not something learned from outside, but the tools already reside within the person to work upon what factual material may be acquired. This means that there are no absolute, universal truths that apply to everyone. For them, reality is an individualized creation.

Since reality for each person is an internal construct (different in every person because no two are the same), the idea of one sovereign Creator who defines right and wrong becomes untenable. On this basis we must be prepared to accept all other ideas and behaviors as equally correct.

Another aspect of postmodernism:

Another religion may be the product of a culture, and culture may not be criticized. It must be accepted as valid for the person holding it. The idea of trying to win a person from one faith to another is immoral. All religions are of equal merit and legitimacy, so any attempt to replace one with another is oppression! On these grounds the Christian missionaries who went out from Europe or America, were in fact, oppressors, imposing a foreign religion on innocent victims. Small wonder that those who accept postmodernism's values now avoid all efforts of evangelism.

All systematized organizations must be regarded as suspect, in fact, as oppressors. Each person is therefore essentially his or her own lone self, and no activity has a right to intrude upon that person’s private rights. The idea of melding into a family of God becomes a reject. The impact of such thinking increasingly invades our church today. Postmodernism’s influence on society has led the editors of our journals to modify both the appearance and the content in an effort to capture the imagination of today’s public.

Increasing numbers of persons think of themselves as Adventists by heritage or tradition rather than by conviction. Hence they feel free to shop cafeteria style among the beliefs & practices of the church, assembling for them a suitable selection. True to postmodernist values they find that their demand to be regarded as equivalent as anyone else to be reinforced in the currents of the wider society. For thirty years, a self-announced progressive wing of the Adventist church has promoted re-interpretation of every doctrine of the church. Should their efforts prevail, it would leave us with little beyond a lingering sentimient to tie us to the Advent message.

The result is the development of a pluralistic value system. I note this not with any attempt to condemn, but to observe what has become now fully apparent. Such break-away from community values of the church minimizes the virtue of unity, extolling in its place “diversity.”

The organized church now becomes challenged. And following post-modernist norms (with regard to organizations) it is regarded as oppressive.

Discounting of church organization is now widespread within the church in some parts of the world. As an organization, its function of enhancing mission is deeply criticized. In its place, mission becomes localized. Wrapped in a kind of parochial Congregationalist mentality that essentially says “Forget the foreign fields, we have our task here.” The steady decline of per capita mission giving in North America is directly related to the intrusion of this system. Organizational diversity is paralleled by a call for doctrinal diversity.

Concurrent with the above we are witnessing a remarkable migration of religion among us. From objective to subjective premise. This exactly parallels the postmodern concept of individualized auto-developed reality. Adventist self-identity once rested on adherence to external truths found in and accepted from the word of God. The experiential element always has been there, but it was used to define my reaction, my surrender to a new birth, my response to the call of Christ. The submission of all my desires and plans and habits and perspectives and goals and hopes—before the majestic truth that Christ has revealed to me. That’s an objective relationship, friends. The transaction was objective. There was a subjective element which dealt with my method and my surrender, but not with the elements of truth. The spirit leads me to accept God’s ways, whether it is convenient or not.

Today’s Adventist church has moved measurably from the description I have just given you. Emphasis falls rather incidentally apart from objective truth (True because it was revealed by God). The stress today is falling on a relationship that relies no longer on revealed truth as it does on inner emotional experience. Hence we have all this feel-good preaching that’s coming from our pulpits, folk. It’s an effort on the part of our pastors to meet the needs that they perceive. At its popular level relationship suggests the coming together of mere equal parties, in a format suggesting negotiated agreement of some kind. Almost missing from this formula is the sense of awe—what it means to come into the presence of the Master of the universe. Curiously, the word relationship is all but absent from the Biblical text.

An intimate walk between us and the Mighty Ruler of all is often presented, but always & only on the basis of overflowing grace. Never on the basis of cozy intimacy between equals.

Related to the above, today’s church finds within it advocates of an ecumenism that downplays doctrine as divisive, substituting experience as the universal solvent that dissolves the differences. Rather than going to the Bible to work out what it actually is teaching, the rigors of such study can be avoided by referring the matter to experience. Not “What does the scripture say?”, but “How do you feel about it?”

A response may be “You feel that way about it, I see it this way, I suppose it really doesn’t matter.” While a place exist for such amelioration of interest in minor issues, in matters of high significance they cannot be resoled on the basis of experience alone. In fact, experience is treacherously deceptive. What may make me feel good may not be related at all to what God would have me doing.

Less apparent but equally as real is the emergence among us of a dual hermeneutic. What actually is the proper way to treat the Scriptures? Two broad schools of thought are developing within our church, whose parameters we cannot explore here tonight. But in brief, they address how the Scripture will yield its instruction to us and what will that instruction say?

How then do we think of our message & mission? Very substantial conflicting currents now run through our church especially in North America. The former zeal for sharing Bible truths, of working together in close community, of a world encompassing vision of a great task to be done in preparation for Christ’s return, today is diminishing in certain areas.

Fortunately, a large body of believers continues to think of itself in these terms: To give sacrificially of time & funds; to rejoice over every new field entered with the gospel, to share the message with their neighbors. But increasingly, another group values more the social aspect of our worth. They find themselves embarrassed by direct evangelism, prefers humanitarian outreach to direct soul-winning, is uncomfortable with church organization, distrusts leadership, and prefers to give from its abundance rather than sacrificially to projects which they can control the use of their gift.

Are you aware dear friends, that more than half of all mission funds now being given in the Adventist church, are given with strings attached…with a line of control going to the giver of the project? That 45% that still is there comes from our Sabbath school offerings, without strings. But it is steadily declining.

The total amount being given isn’t that different, but what has happened is that there have been great gifts given by a handful of prosperous individuals, while there is a steady slow decline in the mass giving through the church. Now, that says something to us doesn’t it? Not to condemn, but simply to observe the facts that you could find anywhere in the statistics that are available.

Yes, this is the kind of life that we have entered into. There are some who hold reservations about parts of our message and our way of life. They read minimally in the Bible and the spirit of prophecy. And they seek feelings that lie beyond objective truth. Now what is needed? It sounds like a lamentation at this point. I would like to end with something upbeat.

The Christ who is creator is also the savior as well as the coming king. Nothing could be more Christocentric than that. The three great pillars of biblical teaching creation, salvation, and redemption all rest upon the person of Jesus. We can’t improve on that. That’s the way the scripture has laid it out. Christ is the center of our faith. The Adventist faith took shape around the central proposition the same Jesus who made us and saved us is coming back soon. We can not quietly sideline a teaching so central to both our message and mission.

We will profit by noting how often when Jesus speaks of his return, He factors into his message an element of unexpected delay, followed by an abrupt unannounced return. Look at the pattern, if we’re going to learn something about His return. The virgins must wait (Matthew 25). The evil stewards experience such a delay while waiting for the return of the master that they abandon the very idea that the owner will ever return and begin to mistreat the other employees. And suddenly what happens? He appears. Unannounced. After a looong time has passed by. After all it was a long time not in the master’s mind, but rather in the mind of the people who waited. And time after all a measurable thing depending on our experience isn’t it? I have had some experiences in which 30-seconds seemed like an eternity. And others in which something bordering an eternity seemed like thirty-seconds. So time is a variable that we can deal with.

The custodians of the talents in the gospels are in charge while the master is away. What happens? He returns unannounced and says “Bring me your talents and what you have done with them.” You know the rest of the story.

Peter foresees a generation laden with disbelief in Christ’s coming and saying “Much time has passed, so why continue to believe?”

It seems clear that Jesus intended us to occupy busily at His work, but ever living in the prospect of his soon return. This pattern builds maturity and it sets the pace for the final generations who are commissioned for the task of bearing the three angel’s messages.

(a thousand apologies for the long post).

olger

[Parade Orange]

Yes many do go to church cause its a lifestyle.

Its where your friends are maybe.

Its a relief from the grind maybe.

Its whats done in the home every Saturday morning.

Its a comfortable fit.

Its a habit.

It feels good.

Feeling you have done your part!

But when you are not raised 'churched', you dont neccesarily go to church out of habit. You may not go at all. Having a bad day? You may not even entertain the idea of church.

Church is a big deal! you have to get up in the morning for one. You have to shave whatever the people will see.

You have to find some presentable clothes. You have to practice your speech in front of the mirror...

"happy Sabbath"

"how art thou?"

"Oh, yes I havent been here for awhile.did u miss me?"

"Praise Jesus, uh.. did you try that oatmeal burger?"

Sometimes, going to church requires a bonafide miracle every week!.

[Parade Orange]

and dont forget the ever popular...

"Oh, Is that a new broach!"